Close Order Formation

After a long period of time spent making prototypes and learning about how games are made, the team assembled and talked about where to go next. What followed was a period of wandering where Raconteur was trying to find a direction.

Over the next few months, the team created several prototypes, one of which was a promising stealth game. A plethora of ideas were thrown at the wall, and a few were sticking.

However, one of them stuck more than the others. It was called “Close Order” and was about protecting a central unit by using rows of other units known as “minions.”

The player could alter the formation shape of the other units in various ways.

Nicholas fondly recalls the moment where he realized the game would be Raconteur’s first commercial release: “It was two colors and a group of squares. You could add more squares around the player square, and create this massive group of units that fired in unison. If you moved the mouse around, the shots made fancy shapes. I sat there for a solid twenty minutes, making different armada and bullet shapes, laughing maniacally. At that moment, I knew we had something.”